


I Should Have Loved A Thunderbird

by ashotofjac



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Post-Canon, Post-War, Secret Lovers, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:31:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashotofjac/pseuds/ashotofjac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the War for Dawn, the Others have been once and for all put to the grave, and a new spring burgeons across the land once named Westeros. With the Iron Throne destroyed and King’s Landing a pile of ash, the realm is no more one kingdom, but five. </p><p>Bran Stark, King in the North, holds dominion from the leagues of the Gift to the Fingers of the Vale, all the way down to the southernmost borders of the riverlands. In the midst of a burgeoning new age, the north is populated by the king’s most faithful of loyalists, among them counted Jon Stark, the prince of dragons and wolves, and resurrected hero of the War of Ice and Fire.</p><p>But even with winter and demons sent back to the cold hell from whence they came, Jon Stark’s problems are not all at rest. In life and death and back again, he is cursed with a heart that beats for the wrong person. But he is not the only one...</p><p>History warned them of the peril of Lyanna Stark and the two men that loved her, but no one had warned against what happens when history begins to repeat itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Wedding in the North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **We’re going to pretend that the five-year gap GRRM originally planned actually happened, so the characters’ ages will be:**   
> 
> 
> **Arya: 17**
> 
> **Jon: 22  
> **   
>  **Gendry: 22  
> **   
>  **Bran: 15**
> 
>   
>    
> 

He had been born twice. Once as a bastard babe in a joyless tower erected in the dusty red mountains of Dorne, swaddled in blood and silk; and then again, as a man, beneath the face of a weeping wall, naked but for the scars that raked his belly like thick black leeches hungry for life.

The first time, he had ripped apart his mother to come into this world, the last of the dragonspawn to taint the Seven Kingdoms; his uncle had taken him in and raised him with wolves, hiding him from all those who would seek to kill him for his blood. He had been a babe raised within the walls of Winterfell, a child who had served as a brother of the Night's Watch, a boy who had been commander to traitors.

The second time had demanded less blood, and more fire. Death had accepted Jon Snow into its fold, but the Red God had reached His hand into the void and drew Jon back out. His awakening had been a violent one; one moment he was a wolf stalking restlessly in a cage of ice, and the next he was choking on lungfuls of singed air as the Lady Melisandre hovered over him with her terrible red eyes. Jon did not like to think on that night, the night of his "rebirth" as the red witch had once called it.

Melisandre had been her name, as much a glamour as the youthful beauty she cloaked herself in. And how ugly that beauty had turned out to be. Even now, safe within the walls of Winterfell, Jon could smell the stink of fire, char, and king’s blood. Stannis Baratheon had trusted his witch when he had ridden south, and she had repaid him in kind with the black remains of his daughter’s bones.

It was that knowledge, coupled with this new ill-fitting skin, that kept sleep just out of reach from the very moment R'hllor had awakened Jon a year ago. Some nights he could not shut his eyes until the sky blushed pink and the sun crested the horizon, others he did not sleep at all. Those nights were the hardest, for when the world turned black and the castle was hushed, all of Jon's ghosts came to visit. Ygritte with her pale, sunken eyes and dull tangle of hair, his father, headless and weeping blood from the stump of his neck, Robb with his throat ripped open and snowflakes frozen in his curls.

Jon's time in this world had forever been cleaved in two: Before and After. His _After_ was plagued by endless waking hours, where light would bleed into the dark and he could never shut his eyes. Jon was lucky to sleep an hour or two before being thrust back into consciousness. It left him exhausted more often than not, but Ghost had a way of shaking off that pain. Jon's wolf dreams were the best sort of rest he could get, and enticing besides.

It was so easy; even now, slumped in a chair beneath the open window, Jon need only close his eyes to smell the green earth of the godswood, the hot stink of the black pools; beneath the canopy of tree, he was suddenly staring into the golden eyes of his sister, sleek and grey and powerful. She padded closer, circling, then sniffed at his neck and curled at his feet in rare submission. He bent down to bury his nose into her fur, and tasted with tongue the blood that was still wet on her coat. It tasted _good_ , hot, and kindled a fierce hunger deep in his belly.

Someone suddenly knocked thrice on the door, startling Jon back to his own skin. The transition was disjointed, and he found himself having to roll back his shoulders. It was queer, being knocked from Ghost; the shadow of beast always seemed to cling to Jon, and nowadays it seemed more unnatural for him to walk on two legs than to prowl on four. 

It was to be expected, he had learned from the wildlings, for when he died, he had inhabited his second life within Ghost, melding man with wolf forevermore. The Red God’s resurrection had disturbed that transition, and so when Jon awoke for his After, his soul had been marked with the beast. Even more so than it had already been. 

He grudgingly pried open his eyes, blinking against the warm gold of a dying afternoon. The direwolf's hunger echoed fiercely in Jon's own stomach, something primal and real that made his insides feel hollow as a wooden doll. "Enter," he called out, weary and starved. The phantom taste of blood lingered on his tongue. The door screamed like the wind when it was opened. "Yes?"

Winterfell's maester stepped into the room, his fat form robed in the colors of grey and white; a chain that glinted with a dozen different metals hung heavy around the man's neck, and his cheeks were flushed from the bite of air. He handed over an unfurled missive dotted with a cracked stamp of golden wax; the crowned stag of the Lord of Storm's End, Edric Baratheon, was etched into its shape. "A missive, Your Grace."

Jon took it and gave the maester a stern look. "How many times have I asked you not to call me that?"

Samwell Tarly chuckled. "At least a hundred, Your Grace." His jowls quivered when he laughed, and for once he did not look frightened. To this day, Winterfell was a new and terrifying place for him, a graveyard of the War for Dawn, and each child left of Lord Eddard's left Samwell reeling in turn. Bran, the all-knowing winter king; Rickon, the Black Wolf; Sansa, with her shining red hair and stony demeanor; and _especially_ Arya, though Sam would never reveal why.

Jon shook his head tiredly and read over the words. Lord Edric had written of Rhaegal, of how he had been spotted flying over Storm's End not a fortnight past. He had not hunted nor rested within the borders of the stormlands, but for all his abstinence, he had inspired doubly the terror. 

Many of this realm had glimpsed the destruction Daenerys Targaryen's dragons could wreak when she landed her host on these shores; more had seen their wrath in the battle against the Others, when field had turned to fire and ice had melted to rivers. Dany and Tyrion Lannister both had died fighting that war, and their dragons with them. Only Rhaegal remained, the lone beast that preferred spreading its wings over open sky to lingering in the north. 

Jon could not say he was disappointed. As much awe as the dragon inspired, he could not find it within himself to love him. Fear, yes, but never love. He was just as glad to be rid of the green-and-bronze beast as it was to be rid of him, surely. 

Jon fed the message to the flames in his fireplace, watching it curl to black ash. “Was that all?”

“No, Your Grace." Samwell gave him an apologetic smile, as if the weight of being a king's advisor were all his fault. "The Lady Alys and her party have arrived and been shown their rooms, she would have you know, and the forge has finally finished with the resizing of the king’s crown.”

 _Robb’s crown_ , Jon could not help but think. He had thought the crown lost after Frey had betrayed Stark, but when Arya Stark had finally come home from wherever south she had been, it was not alone. With her had come a crown, bones, and a little army of her own; with Nymeria by her side, she had marched home three hundred lean wolves, a band of ragged soldiers, a small fraction of the Tully force, and a woman-knight in blue plate that wielded a sword cut from Ice.

Many of the Tully soldiers had died in the war, and even more of Nymeria's pack. The former Brotherhood Without Banners had dropped like flies against the Others, even with their special dragonglass weapons, and all that was left now were Tom Sevenstrings, Anguy, and Gendry, the Usurper's bastard get. 

Jon liked none of them. Especially the bastard, whose deep blue eyes always seemed to follow Arya. He was a pest that Jon wished them rid of, but Westeros was in desperate need of good smiths, the north especially, and _Ser Gendry_ had been trained in forging and spells. It was too steep a price to pay to send him away, and so Jon tolerated the boy's presence.

"I will retrieve it myself," Jon said, going to the wall where his sword belt hung from a peg. He buckled it around his waist, noticing the way it slung loose from his hips. He spent far too many nights hunting in Ghost than eating himself, and the effects were evident in his bones that jutted outward like knives. 

"I would be happy to do it myself, Your Grace," Sam offered, eyeing him with concern. "Perhaps you could rest instead before-"

"Thank you, Sam, but there is no need." He pulled off his soiled tunic, ignored his friend's gasp of breath, and shrugged on a fresh tunic of grey silk and a doublet of black wool to match his breeches and boots. Last, he pulled on a thick cloak the color of smoke that was trimmed with white satin; as lovely as it was, it would do him no good. Jon's After had stolen every bit of warmth from his body, and though it was spring across the realm, the north was no Dorne. 

"Go now," Jon said as he fastened his cloak at his neck with a brooch of polished jet. Outside, the sky was darkening; it was nearly eveningtime. "You must ready yourself, Sam, and quickly. The wedding is soon, and the guests will be filling the godswood within the hour."

Sam straightened, like a soldier to attention. "Of course, Your Grace." He lingered just long enough to escort Jon from his chambers, and then the two parted ways. 

When Jon emerged from the keep, he found Winterfell abustle. There were servants rushing to and fro, platters and cloth in their hands; lords and knights and squires in their finery, sparring in the yard; ladies huddled in groups as they wandered the grounds. The air was rich with the smell of quail and boar and chicken from the kitchens, and there was music of chatter and clangor and birdsong and wind. The sky was a deep gold streaked with violet, and though cold, no speck of snow was in sight. Neither man nor gods had spared any expense for the wedding of the northern king and his little queen.

Jon kept to the shadows as best he could, too tired to engage in talk with guests. There would be plenty of that later on at the wedding feast. As the king's own advisor, he would be seated with Bran, in and amongst his new bride and her family and the rest of the Starks. With every northern lord left in attendance, the night would be enough to drain Jon of every ounce of energy he had left. 

He could smell the smithy before he approached it, all soot and cinder and sweat. The smell brought him back to the day he had sneaked to Mikken, begging for a bravo's blade. _But small, for a child_ , he had added desperately. He had not wanted little Arya to hurt herself, after all.

Mikken had seen straight through him. _Small_ , he had snorted, _for a girl's hand, you mean._

It was _her_ he saw when the smithy finally came into view. Her back was turned to him, but he knew every line of her. The length of her dark hair falling to the small of her back, the sleek curve where her waist met her hip, the slope of her cheekbone, as sharp as a cliffside. Arya Stark, and yet not her at all. She turned before he had even made a noise, like a predator who could sense its prey; even the smile she cracked for him reeked of danger. 

Jon waited for the word that always seemed at the tip of her tongue, the word that seemed both a curse and a tease. Arya's smile did not budge, like it was carved from ice, as she greeted him. "Brother." Hearing her call him by that made his bones feel out of place, as if his head were out of place. It was like wearing another man's plate. It did not _fit right_.

He thought of calling her Princess, as she always seemed loathe to accept, or maybe even her own name. And yet...

It felt traitorous to call this girl Arya; so much had changed from the day they had parted from Winterfell, and her most of all. 

Arya Underfoot had been a little thing, knobby and dirt-streaked, with laughter always on her lips. This new girl was a stranger wearing his sister's skin, sharp and cold, with winter in her eyes. He had seen this girl ride on the back of a direwolf, had seen her ravage Others and wights alike with a sword called Dark Sister, had seen her covered head to heel in thick black blood as the skies above split apart with fire and ice.

This was not the girl he had died for, but a lovely new creature with Arya Stark's memories and Arya Stark's Needle. A mummer, an imposter, his blood, his...

Jon did as he always did when she baited him so. He replied through his teeth, biting out the endearment as if it were black. “Little sister.” The way the words rolled through the ripples of his mind made his skin crawl, as though they were perverse. 

_It’s not right_ , he thought with a heart of lead. _She is not your little sister, no more than Lord Eddard was your father or Stark your true name._

He was a cousin to the children of Winterfell, a nephew of the late Warden of the North, and product of the dragon's madness. King Robb had legitimized the boy he thought his brother, and King Bran had carried it out, but Jon never felt more an outsider. Some whispered Lyanna's son, others dragonspawn, but every northern man, woman, and child called him to his face Prince Jon. 

Even thinking the name made his guts writhe; not only for the fact that Lady Catelyn was likely rolling in her grave, cursing him from whatever heaven or hell she occupied, but for its hidden meaning beneath the strange new words. 

He might have been a prince in another life, a true prince. He had the blood of wolves, yes, and the Starks and the First Men, but he also belonged to the dragonlords and their ilk, slavers and riders of Old Valyria, where men and women wore their hair silver-gold and had eyes like purple glass.

Had his mother lived, had the man who had been his father lived, Jon might have been a Targaryen prince of Westeros' greatest dynasty - nephew to Daenerys and Viserys, half-brother to Aegon and Rhaenys, grandchild of King Aerys and Queen Rhaella, and . . . son to Prince Rhaegar. 

The thought of him brought a bitter twist to Jon's mouth, as it always seemed to. Time had no more lessened the hurt of that thorn than it had brought back the fallen - Old Nan with her stories and Ser Rodrick with his swords, Robb, red of hair and easy of smile, Lady and Grey Wind, his uncle, Ned, who had been the only father he ever knew. 

And yet, being a Targaryen did not change history, and having dragon's blood made him no less a wolf.

At least that's what he told himself.

"Your Grace," Gendry said, startled, as he slipped outside. His bare chest was slick with sweat, and in his filthy black hands was a polished wooden box, gleaming beneath the cast of the dying sunset. 

"Is that Bran's crown?" he asked, working his jaw as the bastard's muscles brushed the sleeve of Arya's tunic. So casual, and yet all it did was inspire black hate in Jon. Judging by the smith's sullen glare, he thought much the same of Jon. 

Arya glanced up at Jon's question, her grey eyes looking more silver than smoke. For an instant, it was as if he was Ghost again, back in the godswood, laying the flat of his tongue against Nymeria's fur. "It is," she answered for the smith, taking the box casually from his hands. "I was just about to see it off to him."

"No need," Jon said softly. It was always hard to face Arya after the nights Ghost and Nymeria rutted in the woods. "I'm sure you need to change for the ceremony. I will take it to Bran myself."

For a moment it seemed as if Arya would argue with him, as in days of old. He waited with baited breath for the reemergence of the stubbornness he had known and loved of her. _Do it_ , he thought, _I dare you_. But then, the moment had passed, and she only conceded Bran's crown. "As you wish," she murmured, studying his face.

Jon stepped back, catching the smith's loaded look before Gendry could lower his eyes. The boy may have had king's blood, but he was possessed of no manner or nobility. Just the way he casually engaged with the Princess of Winterfell shirtless and dripping with sweat spoke of his low birth, royal bastard or not. 

When the bastard met his eyes so boldly, it made Jon see the merit of the dragon and stag battling it out in the swirling green waters of the Trident. Jon did not understand why Arya seemed so fond of this bastard boy, nor why she tolerated his lingering eyes. 

"I suggest you clean up as well, Ser Gendry." The bastard's sullen blue eyes narrowed. Jon felt a little thrill go through him, as if he had won some game. He half-turned, making to leave, and threw the last words over his shoulder with more than a little ice in his tone. "It would not do to pay respects to your new queen bare-chested and reeking of flames."

* * *

He found Bran in Lord Eddard's old chambers, amidst a chaos of silks and wools and velvets where the shape of his bed was buried. He was already dressed for his wedding in lambswool breeches, a long tunic, and doublet of pale grey whose buttons were fashioned in the likenesses of snarling wolves. Hodor was kneeling before the little king at the side of the bed, deftly tying up knee-length boots of bleached white leather. When Bran saw Jon, he smiled one of his ever-so-rare smiles and beckoned him inside.

“Hodor,” Bran said softly, touching the gentle giant on the slope of his shoulder, “go now. Jon will help me with the rest.”

When Hodor was gone, Jon handed the wooden box to Bran and knelt to finish lacing his boots. For a moment there was only silence and the crackle of fire, and then Bran sighed. "This was Robb's crown," he whispered with sadness in his voice.

When he was done, Jon went to sit beside his little brother, cousin, king, and admired the northern crown. It was a bronze circlet engraved with runes of the First Men, topped with nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords; Sam had said that it was of a quality with the crown of the old Kings of Winter. It was not flashy nor jeweled, but it had a beauty to it all the same. Jon imagined that it would look much the same nestled atop Bran's auburn hair as it had Robb's.

"Let me," Jon said softly, taking the crown from Bran's fingers and raising it to band around his forehead.

Bran watched him closely. The fire in the fireplace seemed to wreath his crown in flame, and it brought back memories of the Others shrieking red murder and wights limned in living tongues of red, yellow, and orange. Jon did not like to think on the war, nor the many who had died, of the living and the dead. That night already tormented his rare bouts of sleep, he need not linger in thought willfully.

"Are you well, Jon?" Bran asked softly, reading the distress on his face.

Jon lowered his eyes. He knew he likely looked a mess; he had not found rest in days, and his skin hung over bone like cloth over steel. Jon Stark was but a shell of Jon Snow, no more man than Ghost was, but less man than others might think. "I am fine, Bran. It is not me you should worry about. It is your wedding day. This will be a night of joy and celebration." He tried his best to put on a convincing smile. 

Bran was not convinced, but he did not push the issue. He nodded as if he did not agree, and instead said, "I wish Father were here."

It was like a sword to the gut. Jon missed his father as well, more than words could say, and he had so many _questions_. Why had he allowed Lady Catelyn to hate Jon? Why had he lied to her? Had his mother ever held him before she died? Did the Dragon Prince love Lyanna Stark, or did he rape her as the stories were wont to tell? So many questions that would forever be left unanswered. "I miss him too," Jon choked out. "He would be proud of you, Bran, of all that you have accomplished, all that you have done for this family. He would be proud of the king you have become."

Bran's blue eyes watered as he stared his brother down, shimmering like the Summer Sea. It was only a moment before he uttered in a breath, "What if she won't love me?"

It took Jon a moment to reply. Bran was different than the boy he had left laying broken in bed; after the war was done and it was time to rebuild their lives, Jon could see the stark change in him - the lack of joy that had once been there, the carefree laughter, and freedom he always found in climbing. This new Bran was sadder, quieter, more knowing. And yet, all the knowledge in the world did not seem to appease his perceived shortcomings. 

"She will love you," Jon said, remembering Lyanna Mormont's promise as she pledged her House to Jon's cause for the Long Night, before any of his siblings had revealed themselves to be alive, before when he had been so brief a king. "Legs do not make the man, Bran. The soul does. And your soul is as strong as the roots of the heart tree. Lady Lyanna is lucky to have you, and you her. Affection will not be instant, but it can grow. You need only water it." 

"How do you know?" Bran persisted.

"Because," Jon whispered, "I have loved before." He thought of Ygritte, with fire in her hair, shedding tears for the last of the giants; but where her eyes had once been tinged with blue, now they were grey, and her hair had less fire to it and more brown, and suddenly she was Arya and not Ygritte at all.

It was as if Bran could read every thought in Jon's mind. The king stared him down fiercely, unraveling Jon's shame as easily as unspooling thread. The silence was thick and deafening, and it was a thousand years before Bran finally murmured, "It is time. Tell Hodor to fetch my chair."

* * *

The wedding was done in the violet cast of twilight, beneath the thick canopy of the godswood. Little candles flickered like fireflies below the shade of oaks and grey-green sentinels, and played eerie shadows on the pale white face of the heart tree. A thin moon hung silver in the sky, and the direwolves stalked restlessly through the trunks, setting the guests in attendance on edge. 

Bran had sat waiting in his wheeled chair before the still black pool, looking more a king than any walking man Jon had ever seen. Nervousness had been writ all over his face, but that had melted to awe the moment his bride had come down the footpath. 

Jon could still remember the morning in his Before, when Stannis Baratheon had summoned him to the King’s Tower at Castle Black. The air had been frigid and brittle, and the king had brooded in his solar like some dark shadow as he read the words from the crumpled missive as if they were a curse. _Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK._ Deep down in his heart, Jon had been secretly pleased. Stannis had not.

Jon watched Bran’s bride walk to him through the shade of Winterfell's godswood, lean and small for a lady of fifteen, garbed in the green and black of her House. A long cloak of forest green velvet hung from her shoulders, emblazoned with the likeness of a prowling black bear. She was not the prettiest girl Jon had ever seen, but beauty itself had proven to be a double-edged blade. _Even the loveliest rose can have its thorns_ , he thought, remembering the red priestess. Lady Lyanna was fierce and loyal, two things needed of a Stark bride.

Northern weddings were quicker than others, and once the words were said and the prayers prayed and the direwolf cloak of Stark lain over Lyanna Mormont's shoulders, the godswood was cleared of its king and new queen and their guests. All but Jon, who lingered, even as Arya walked away, tempting him to go after her, to never let her out of his sight again. 

When Jon was alone, he knelt to the weirwood, splayed his hand on its face, sat in the silence for a while. He had not prayed since the day he prayed for Arya's return to him, before he had been murdered by his brothers. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had sent Mance Rayder for his little sister, a lifetime since he had wished for _a grey girl on a dying horse_. 

That had all been a lie of Melisandre's fires, but even with the true Arya Stark before him each day, Jon had never felt farther from her. Each day seemed to push them more and more apart until it was as if she was a stranger to him, and he to her. It made him infinitely sad and thrilled all at once, like some terrible tragedy and some captivating game. And now that Nymeria and Ghost were mating, it did nothing to ease his confusion. 

Jon dug his fingers into the pale bark, smearing red sap across wizened eyes. "You old gods," he prayed, "gods of my mother, gods of my father, don't..." His voice trailed off just as Ghost emerged from behind the tree, his red eyes as all-knowing as the face carved into the weirwood. His presence gave Jon strength to finish his prayer, to voice his worries. "You took her from me once," he prayed, getting to his feet. "Don't do it again." 

* * *

By the time Jon arrived to the Great Hall, food was already being served and drinks poured all around. Tom Sevenstrings and two women, Willow and Jeyne, sang _Two Hearts That Beat As One_ to Bran and his little queen. Gilly was one of the serving women passing out chicken pies, and she smiled timidly at Jon as he slipped by her. 

It was blissfully warm inside this hall, and only half as crowded as it had been the nights King Robert had feasted here so long ago, Jon noted. The War of the Five Kings and the War for Dawn had claimed many lives and more. So many faces were missing from his childhood: old Ser Rodrick, Jory, Hullen, Mikken, Gage, his Uncle Benjen, kindly Maester Luwin with his ravens. 

And then there were the ghosts that were painful to remember, too important to forget: Lord Eddard, strong and noble, Robb, his brother and best friend, Lady Lyanna Stark, the mother he had never known, Tyrion Lannister, the little man bold enough to be a king. He missed them all, each and every one. Even Lady Catelyn with her sullen looks and Theon Turncloak who had never been anything but an ass, Jon would have suffered every moment of their disdainful looks in exchange for all the others.

But that was a fool's wish, and futile besides. All those who had fallen in the game of thrones were gone for good, and those who had been slain by the force of the Others had died twice - once by ice, and second by fire, and they were never coming back.

Jon's seat was at the high table, far above the other guests. Bran and his bride sat center, with Lady Lyanna's sisters to her right; Arya, Jon, Rickon, Sansa, and Lord Harry to Bran's left. Most of the food had been supplied by Lord Manderly's train, and so he was going around to each of the Mormonts in turn, congratulating the union of bear and direwolf. 

Arya's smile glittered in the torchlight as Jon took his chair beside her, but it was not the only thing that made his stomach flip. It was only a handful and half of years ago that he had been seated below the salt, far from view, a shameful bastard seated in the midst of lowly squires and dogs. And now...he was on the dais between Arya and Rickon, as Jon Stark, an advisor on the king's council and bastard no more. 

"Prince Jon!"

The name from Lord Manderly's lips stopped him cold; it ran like snowmelt through his veins, and set the hair on his skin to stand. Hearing the people of the north call him prince brought back memories of long, hard days at the Wall, Alliser Thorne sneering "Lord Snow" at him while others had followed suit.

Lady Stark would have cursed to hear that name. Prince Jon, cousin to her children and advisor to her precious Bran, a Stark of name by decree of his lost brother Robb. He could not imagine that Robb's will had Lady Catelyn's seal of approval, in life _or_ death. 

Staring out across the hall, he could almost see her now - pursed lips, those cold bones, blue eyes, and thick auburn hair. Jon blinked. Sansa raised a brow, startled at his staring, and continued on by, trailed by three little girls from the east, whose Vale families had sent them to foster with the great northern king. Sansa had grown to look the very image of Lady Catelyn, down to the particular way her red hair flashed in torchlight. Jon found it hard to look at her; it was like facing the ghost of the woman who had spent his entire life begrudging his presence inside these walls. Even now, a Stark in name and the true son of Lady Lyanna, Jon felt as if he were some traitor all along.

Jon took Lord Wyman's proffered hand as quick as he could, but he failed to conceal his discomfort. It was only when the fat lord had moved on down the table that Arya bent over to place her lips at his ear. "Are you okay?" she mouthed, her breath fanning goosebumps along his skin. 

He suppressed a chill and nodded, giving her a smile that was more Jon Snow than Jon Stark. "Well enough," he told her quietly. Her grey eyes roved his face, looking, he was sure, for any trace of lie. She found it easy enough, but did not press him. Instead, she picked up his goblet, filled it with dark red wine, and pressed it into his hands. 

This time Jon's smile was genuine. 

The feast seemed to last forever, drawing deeper and deeper into the night until it appeared as if every lord and lady in attendance was well and truly drunk on joy or Arbor wine - and some both. 

It was hours before the food was finally finished, and the tables were pushed back to clear the floor for dancing. Sansa in her sky blue gown was led by her husband Lord Harrold, Lord Wyman by little Willow once of the Crossroads Inn, Queen Lyanna and young Rickon, Lady Alysane and Anguy the Archer, Alys Karstark and Sigorn. Many and more followed. 

Jon was content enough to watch and sip his wine, to sit in solidarity with Bran. Song after song was played by Tom Sevenstrings, and then Lord Manderly's musicians in turn. Osha took Hodor to the floor, and the partners switched round and round. 

Jon could not remember being so happy, except perhaps for the moment the last demon had been put to dragonsteel, and the world was once more for the living. That could not be touched, but this night was close. 

Jon took another sip from his cup, drinking slow, and froze when a new couple graced the floor; a muscled man in a dark blue tunic and black breeches, the colors that Stannis Baratheon had once been made of, and a girl, garbed in wisps of grey silks with a silver circlet abound her brow. 

The bastard Gendry had Arya in his arms, flushing as they moved across the floor in time with the music. Jon put his cup down and leaned back against his chair to watch the two, Robert and Lyanna reborn. He need only look for a few moments to feel the anger spark within him, as easily as a drop of oil to flame. 

He should not be so jealous, he knew. Arya was his little sister. It was only because of Ghost and Nymeria that he was even feeling these dark, confusing things. And yet, even so, he could not help but want to stake a claim over her, this girl that was his sister and not. 

It was like loving a stranger and a ghost. A stranger wore the skin of his little sister, moving in such a smooth, queer way that it set the hairs on the back of his neck to stand. Watching her was...chilling.

The man who had been his father had started a war for Lyanna Stark, a war whose shadow had only just been lain to rest, nearly twenty years after its inception. It had been selfish and cruel and rash of Rhaegar Targaryen, everyone was like to say. But as he watched the bastard Gendry glance down and smile at Arya with more than friendship in his eyes, Jon thought that mayhaps he knew what Prince Rhaegar had been thinking. 

Jon pushed back from the table before his thoughts went any further. He had seen enough. Bran looked up, curious. "Are you leaving already?" 

"With your leave, Your Grace. I would find rest now," he lied. 

And Bran knew it too, met his grey eyes boldly as if to say, _I know your secrets, every one that you keep locked up in your black heart._ All that Bran said though was, "Of course," and, "sleep well." 

Jon left the hall without looking back, and took the long way around the castle. 

He allowed himself to stalk the shadows of the corridors and keeps and yard, to entertain himself on the once-fantasies of closing his hand around Ramsay Snow's throat. Before, he had worried himself sick over his little sister being married to the beast, of being hurt, of being made a woman too soon. But that had been Jeyne Poole, Sansa's old friend. 

Arya had been...well, he had no idea, but judging by the liquid accents she could adopt of the east, he would wager Essos. He had never asked her what she had been through, did not dare to let that talk distance them. Arya's secrets were her own, and if she had wanted to share them, he trusted she would. 

His chambers were black when he finally reached them, shrouded in the same darkness Ghost pulled strength from. Jon found no strength here - only cold and quiet. 

He shrugged off his cloak and doublet as he slipped through the door, and his belt came next, thunking to the floor. His tunic was last, and Jon gratefully collapsed to the chair left beside his open window, bone-chilled and bone-tired. 

“You haven’t been sleeping.” The voice came from the blackest corner of his room, a low, familiar tone that did nothing to soothe the fierce thumping in his chest. 

Arya blended with the shadows like some night wolf, the grey of her eyes catching silver in the shaft of moonlight splaying through his window. Jon’s heart raced. He did not even try to hide his surprise.

“No,” he admitted, trying to catch his breath. He meant to ask her how she had gotten here so quickly, how she had hidden, but she beat him to it. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” She slunk forward with the grace of a stalking cat, still clad in only her dress the color of a winter's sky and silver circlet. 

He had to think, but it was difficult when she looked so dark and lovely before him. “Three days.”

Arya came closer, the smell of her waking blood-hunger within him like Ghost when he was slavering for meat. She reached out and ran her fingers through the thick of his hair as he had done to her when she was still his little sister. His eyes rolled back into his skull, and for just an instant he could smell rich earth and taste blood on his tongue. Ghost shook him out of his skin, and Jon opened his eyes to find Arya still looking at him. Her eyes were dark as the night they were shrouded in, and her face unreadable. 

"Does sleep evade you so easily?"

Jon snorted softly through his nose. "Death has a way of doing that to a man."

Arya's face was still as a mask. "Do the wolf dreams give you no comfort?"

Jon froze into ice, and it was clear that she had felt it beneath her fingers. _Do the wolf dreams give you no comfort?_ Was that oblivious innocence, or a careful goad...did she too slip into Nymeria at night, when the white and grey mated beneath the stars? Somehow he did not believe Arya was ignorant to her words. But what was she playing at?

Jon did not know how to play this game. "At times...though a man requires rest that beast cannot give."

Arya ignored that. "You should let the maester give you a sleeping potion."

Sam had suggested the same, but Jon did not like the idea of being forced into unconsciousness. Not after his murder, not after his resurrection. The wolf dreams would have to suffice for now, and the few hours he got here and there in between. "I will consider it."

As always, his lie was easily caught, but Arya did not call him out on it. Instead, she bowed her head ever so slightly and withdrew from him. "I must go back to the feast. It will soon be time for the consummation, and I promised Bran to clear the hall before he and his new bride left."

Jon nodded, though he was disappointed all the same. They stared at each other for a few moments, Arya's eyes flicking down to his bare chest and the thick gashes left there by knives in the dark. Her voice was a faint whisper. "I wish I could kill them all over again for what they did to you."

He swallowed thickly. "As do I."

That brought a dark smile to her lips for a fleeting moment. "Good night." 

When she was to the door, Jon called out to her, eager as always to postpone their separation. "Sleep well...little sister.”

With any other person, he would have expected a reaction - a twitch of the brow, a narrowing of the eyes - but this Arya was different, a dark thing who revealed nothing she did not wish to. Finally, after a thousand years, she smiled a soft, sweet smile that hid more than it told. “And you as well…” She let it linger, lifted her chin and quirked one corner of her mouth. “Brother.”


	2. Blue As Frost

That morning she had flown. 

She'd taken Snow out at dawn, working in quiet as the stableboy snored in his bed of hay; the mare was lovely, cream on snow, and had a sweet temperament. She'd only whinnied softly as she was saddled, and followed quietly when Arya led her out the Hunter's Gate. 

Once the gates were closed behind them, and the castle cowled by hills...she and Snow had ridden on wings. It was freeing in a way nothing else was; the speed, the open sky and open field, the wind tearing through her hair like an insistent lover. It made her feel as if she had taken a dragon's skin, skimming the surface of the countryside searching for feed. 

They had ridden for hours, as she had not in years. She and Snow flew fast over spring flats, making thunder with her hooves. They passed icy springs and rolling hills and tumbles of stones where towers once stood, they galloped over scorched earth and through thickets of forest and fields of wildflowers that bloomed in every color. It was there, in the freedom of abandoning all that she knew, to spread wings over open plains crusted with diamond dew, that Arya Stark felt free as a bird. 

It was the only way to clear her mind of all that plagued it. 

She often felt like a soldier, locking away the painful memories that dug at her otherwise like a blade to bone; her father, on his knees and open-mouthed, her mother, lifeless and cold and drenched in murky water, Raff the Sweetling, snaking his tongue down her throat, Nymeria's pack, feral shadows that ravaged savagely, the Others, monsters from the stories, armored in ice, dragons, the silver queen's children, scaled in jade and obsidian and pearl, whose flames had turned the sky to hellfire on that long, long night. 

There was Horseface and Arry and Nan, Squab and Salty, Cat and Beth and Mercy. She had lived enough lives for fifty, and yet most days Arya felt as if she was still wearing a mask, another girl's face. The way people looked at her - the way _Jon_ looked at her - was as if she was some stranger. An imposter who wore Arya Stark's name, just as much a pretender as Jeyne Poole. 

Oftentimes it cut to see the way Jon's eyes roamed all over her, as if to search for any remnants of his little sister within. Some days she wanted to shout at him, "It's me! I'm still Arya!" Other days she did not believe it enough to want to try.

She oft felt as if the wars had made strangers of _everyone_ she loved. Rickon, her wild baby brother, all grown up and feral; Bran, quiet and somber, all-knowing; Jon, her Jon, alive by only the Red God's mercy. And Gendry... Last night rushed back in images, fire and forge and steel, him bent over, reworking the two swords named Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail...

She had been content to linger in the heat of the smithy, watching as his muscles pumped and his jaw tightened in concentration. He was one of the only smiths left who knew the secrets of Valyrian steel, and though he usually spent his days teaching the boy apprentice sent from the Reach, he was alone but for his hammer and fire. 

They had sat together in silence, as they so often did; only the clangor of steel and the pop of fire was there to make music. It was then that Gendry had looked up suddenly, catching Arya's keen, watchful eye; she remembered it so vividly, the way the flames had reflected in his eyes like crackling blue fire, a _new_ sort of wildfire. Without warning, he'd left the broken bodies of Ice and kissed Arya before the heat of the forge. 

Even this morn, with the fresh spring chill and an orange sun rising in the east, she could feel the tingle on her lips. It was not her first kiss, not at all. But somehow it _felt_ like it. The awkward tilt, the unsure press, the butterflies that had flown in her belly. And when he had pulled away, Gendry said not a word. He'd only tucked his head and went back to work, hammering away at her family's blade. 

Arya did not know how to feel about what he'd done. Did she like it, or had he only taken her by surprise? She, who could not be surprised. The flutter in her stomach told her the answer she sought, and yet...

Arya would never forget Gendry's mistake. _He left me. He did it only the once, but once was enough._ She had forgiven him for his betrayal, for leaving her so willingly, and in turn given back her friendship. But she would never forget him being bought so easily, with just a handful of knight's words and a "ser" at the end. Her trust, once left in the mud, could never be shined clean again. 

When she finally returned from riding, breathless and tousled, she left Snow to the stablehand and joined her queen at the archery butts. They had knocked loose several dozen arrows before Lyanna departed to break her fast with Bran, and Arya had retired to the godswood to soak her skin in the inky black springs.

She stayed there for hours, stripped naked, shrouded only in the dense canopy of wood and breathy mists of the pools. The world was quiet within the wood of the old gods, a sacred place for wolves to stalk. Where the northern country had been wide open plains and free sky, the godswood was confined, intimate, nestled with a thick veil of leaves and limbs. It bore the smell of winters past, and spring anew; it was the smell of _home_ , and made her feel safe in a way nowhere else could. So long as she was in the godswood, nothing could touch her or her mind. 

* * *

Dinner was another story entirely.

She was sat at Bran's left, as she so often did these days. They supped on roast boar and carrots and buttered turnips, with Arbor gold and dark ale to wash it all down. Jon had joined them across the table, with Lyanna and Maester Sam at Bran's right, and Lord Howland Reed and Lady Meera at Arya's left.

Lord Howland had traveled from Greywater Watch with his daughter Meera to pay homage to their king; they had not made it for the wedding a month past, and so it was now that he and his daughter pledged themselves once more by ice and fire to the King in the North.

Over food, they spoke of those long gone - her father, Robb, Tyrion Lannister, the Dragon Queen, many and more who had perished in the days of Lannister rule and the battle for dawn. That long night of blood, fire, and ice was one Arya could never forget, no matter what name she wore. The black night sky had been lit by dragonfire, the fields of snow tainted with shards of ice and pools of blood, Winterfell's thick walls standing guard for the wolves and their friends. The north had been thickly crowded with girls, men, boys, ladies, all desperate for safe haven, all witness to the Others' legions. 

It was hard to believe that in a hundred years, the War of Ice and Fire and the heroes who fought in it would only be stories that mothers told their children at night.

The hours went quickly around the table, and it was twilight when the sweets were served. The cooks had made blackberry tarts topped with sweet cream, but the hunger in Arya's belly could not be abated with sugar and berries. She prodded her tart and cream with the point of a dagger, and concentrated on the way the blade's edge swirled through the blend of deep purple juice and ivory melt. After a while, the din of fond stories faded in her ears and her eyes grew heavy. 

She dreamed she was a wolf. The forest rose tall and thick around her, flushing green with spring. Mists lingered over the ground like hot white breath, and scattered when her paws broke through. The moon was a pale silver circlet hanging in the sky, whilst its gilded lover died in a sliver on the horizon in brilliant shades of amethyst and onyx.

What was left of her pack roamed free through the wolfswood outside the soaring man-rock, but her brother was near. He made little noise, silent as a ghost, but his coat gave him away. She could smell him close, could smell his fur as easily as she could find her way home. It was only a moment later that his eyes gleamed through the trees, blood-red like the cast of fire of winged leather beasts. 

He padded over on feet as silent as his name, circling her as he so often did. Her brother sniffed at her, rubbed against her. She lay down in deference, so at odds with the alpha who had commanded hundreds and chased off those who would mount her. 

When she woke, Jon was staring right at her. He had deep purple shadows beneath his eyes, as if he had not slept for a hundred years, and he was as thin as he'd ever been, with his hair grown out and tousled...but his gaze was bright, alive. It was as if it was his first time seeing her. The shaken awe, the animal hunger still prowling somewhere in the dark light of his stare. In that moment, she knew. Jon _knew_. 

His look left her feeling as if her insides had been pulled out, shaken, and poured back inside her bones. In another life she might have bit her lip; in another life her cheeks might have flamed. But it had been a thousand years, and she had worn a thousand skins, and she would not betray her thoughts.

A scraping chair cut through their look. "My king." Howland Reed stood. "I fear travel and age has left me tired. I thank you for the wonderful meal, and with your leave, I would retire."

At the mention of his title, Bran's blue eyes lit up, as if it were the first time hearing it. For an instant, Arya spotted the little brother that had climbed towers like a monkey from the Summer Isles, and dueled with her beneath the heart tree with broken white brances. "Of course," Bran allowed, gesturing to the door, "I shall call Hodor to show you to your rooms." 

"No need," Howland insisted, and then he turned to look at Arya with those queer earth-green eyes. "If the Princess Arya would not mind..." 

Arya had no excuse. Her tart was a ravaged mess on her plate, and she had been clearly mute to the earlier conversation. Bran looked at her expectedly. She stood from her chair and inclined her head to Lord Howland, ignoring the sharp way Jon was staring after her. "This way, my lord." 

She walked them out of the Great Keep and across the covered bridge that connected to the armory. They were silent as she led, listening to the sound of wind and howl. Arya felt a tension between them, though she could not place its source; Jojen and Meera had been Bran's friend, Lord Howland a friend to her father. Arya was desperate to shake off the stiffness, to quell the strain. To fill the quiet, she offered condolences. "I am sorry for the loss of your son, my lord." She remembered the stories of Jojen Reed, the small greenseer who had helped her brother north to the raven's cave. Jojen had died so that Bran could know his gift, had died and been left in the deep of north, never to return home to rest.

Howland gave her a grateful smile that took years off his face and turned his eyes from hard earth to fresh moss. "War makes mourners of us all. Your Grace knows that better than most." 

And she had. It was just like the Ghost of High Heart had said; Arya had supped on grief like one would boar, had known its taste one too many times in far too few years. Her father, beheaded for a traitor, Robb, betrayed and mutilated, her mother...

"I am very grateful for your escort, Your Grace. Winterfell is so much larger than I remember from the war. With so many lost..." Howland trailed off, watching her from the side of his eye as they went through the armory and to the Guest House. "You know, I knew your aunt when I was younger."

Arya was intrigued. Even now, with Jon's true parentage shown the cold light of day, she knew little of her father's sister - the woman who had lived and died so that Jon Snow could be born. "What was she like?" she found herself asking, desperate for stories long-dead.

Howland chuckled and the light dimmed in his eyes, like a candle whose flame had flickered. "Much like you actually. She was kind, fierce, brave. She helped me when I needed it most, and never once looked down on me for it. Lyanna Stark was a good friend to me. She would have loved you."

Arya allowed herself a smile. How different life might have been had her Aunt Lyanna lived, had Rhaegar Targaryen not given her a laurel of winter roses. Then again, had Prince Rhaegar and her aunt Lyanna not run away together, Arya would never have known Jon, and _that_ was too sad a thought for this world.

Arya could feel Howland's knowing green eyes boring into her skin, as if he were in awe of her. "She was lovely as well," he mused faintly, almost without meaning to. "So very lovely. You look like her."

Her father had said the same thing once long ago, when she was small and ugly. She had not believed him then, though he would have known better than any. Hearing it the second time did not take away the surprise. "I do?" Her voice was soft as a whisper.

"It's strange actually." Howland's tone had taken on dark amusement. "Like a mirror image reflected back at me. Looking upon you makes me feel fifteen years old again." He wore a sad, twisted smile. "I met her then, at the tourney of Harrenhal. I was but a minor lord, with no horse or steel or pavilion proper. There were squires that took advantage of my size, beat me and stole my spear. Lyanna Stark saved me, bound my wounds in silk, gave me a place at the table of wolves. I was indebted to her for the kindness she paid me, and I was there the day she died."

Arya was silent, enraptured.

"It's interesting," Howland was saying, his eyes fixed on some distant memory plucked from his mind, "the little jests that the gods like to make."

Arya was confused. "Jests?"

"You," Howland glanced at her, "Ser Gendry, your brother's smith. If you are Lyanna, he is Lord Robert come again."

Arya suppressed a snort. People often said that of Gendry, but Arya could see nothing of the friend she knew in the old king she remembered from long ago. "He's nothing like his father."

Howland's smile was unamused. "You'd be surprised at what men pass down to their sons, Your Grace. That boy is the ghost of Robert Baratheon as he was in the days of his rebellion. In that time, we were the rebels, fighting for Lord Rickard's shade, peace in the land, an end to the madness on the Iron Throne. Lord Eddard lost his brother and father in the Mad King's cruelty, Jon Arryn his heir. Robert, though...he was fighting for something else entirely."

Her heart, trained from years in the House of Black and White, thumped heavily as they stopped before the rooms given over to him. She did not even mean to breathe her next word, "What?"

Howland paused, looked her over with a smile that was as much a warning as it was a lesson. "A face like yours." 

* * *

His words haunted her even after she'd left him. She roamed the castle restlessly, staying to the corridors she knew were deserted. She could not imagine seeing Bran now nor Lady Meera, in the wake of the crannogman's parting words. _For a face like yours..._ She counted her steps through the armory and down the length of the Guards Hall, took the way through the First Keep where it overlooked the Broken Tower, all the while wondering if Jon's mother had ever taken the same route. 

When she tired of that, she found herself seeking the godswood; specifically the hot pools that lay beneath the windows of the Guest House. However, when she approached them, bubbling and steaming beneath the cast of pale moonglow, she saw she was not alone in the idea. A lone figure, limned in silver, sat propped against the trunk of an old pine tree. Arya knew it was Jon before she saw his face, knew it was him the same way Nymeria had sensed Ghost in her dreams. The same way Ghost had likely sensed his sister.

Arya considered turning around, shifting through the shadows like a cat without Jon ever being the wiser. But something about him drew her closer, no matter the tension, no matter that they had been locked together in dream before. He hid his surprise well when she finally stepped out of the shroud of darkness, only glancing up in silence as he watched her settle beside him.

"Little sister." He said it softly, quietly, and yet it carried on the night breeze and sent a ripple down her spine.

"Jon," she said in return.

He looked down at the pile of flowers in his lap, strung together by their stems to make half a crown. "You weren't in your room when I went looking earlier."

"Lord Howland had much to say," she answered, tilting her head back against the rough bark of the tree. From here she could see every crater and crevice on the moon, shadowed in grey and lighted in white; the colors of Stark. "He spoke of your mother."

Jon was silent, as he ever was when Lyanna Stark was mentioned. Arya knew the war that brewed within him; his lifelong desperation to know of the woman who gave him life, and yet the crushing disappointment that his father had been a lie, that his family had been a lie. Lyanna Stark was as much a curse as she was a gift to him. "What did he have to say?" Jon's voice was so quiet that Arya nearly missed his words.

She considered holding back the truth, but found herself feeling sick at the thought. Jon would never know his mother; he deserved every bit of knowledge about her. "Lord Howland told me of how he met her, at the tourney of Harrenhal."

"The tourney where Rhaegar Targaryen set his sights on her," Jon pointed out, with more than a little steel in his tone.

Arya ignored that. "Lord Howland said that she was kind and brave and lovely." The corner of Jon's mouth lifted ever so slightly, though he did his best to hide it. "He said..."

Jon sensed her hesitance, and glanced up with furrowed brows. "Said..."

"I look like her." Arya met his eyes, grey on grey, and she wondered if he was seeing his mother in her face. "He said that Robert Baratheon fought a war for a face that looked like mine. Prince Rhaegar was his cousin by blood, and Robert Baratheon _killed_ him with a warhammer to the chest, all for the stolen hand of Lady Lyanna."

Jon's mouth tightened, and he flicked his eyes away to stare out into the distance. It was the cast of his face in darkness, the brooding narrowing of his eyes, the clench of his jaw, bone flexing through skin, that made her think of Gendry. What was it, that Lord Howland had said of him? _You'd be surprised at what men pass down to their sons, Your Grace..._

Arya tried to imagine Gendry killing anyone in the heat of battle, piercing their heart with the weight of a mighty warhammer, mounted on a warhorse and garbed in plate and antlered helm. All because of a slight. However, when she pictured it, his visor was up and his eyes were flaming blue fire, and his foe wore a suit of gleaming black armor and the face of her cousin.

Jon had the blood of the Starks by Lyanna, but he was a dragon on his father's side; he was cousin to Gendry just as Prince Rhaegar had been cousin to King Robert by the marriage of Princess Rhaelle and Lord Lyonel Baratheon. Any blood spilled between the two would be an affront to the gods, and lives taken would be an abomination. Arya was not blind to the brewing mistrust and distaste that separated Jon and Gendry, though whether that was rooted in blood history or selfishness she could never decide.

Jon's hand brushing hers shook her back to life. "You may have her face," he told her seriously, "you may have her spirit, but you shall never have her fate." 

Arya frowned. "You overworry." Not every history was damned to repeat itself, and not every story was retold in ghosts. 

It was as if she had not spoken at all. Jon pressed on seriously. "I swear it, by the old gods, by ice, by wolves and blood. You, Arya Stark, will not have my mother's fate. Not while I am alive and breathing." With that, he reached down to his lap, watching her all the while, and then as gently as the brush of a new lover, crowned her with a garland of pale blue flowers.


	3. A Brewing Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **For plot's sake, I'm going to age Rickon up to 12.**

The thunder grumbled like a snoring giant trapped in the clouds. The sky was the grey of steel and the clouds black as night, but the lightning that struck the horizon far off in the distance was as white a fire with which Lightbringer had been imbued. The heavens growled again, and though there was no rain, it promised that a storm was brewing. Jon welcomed it.

He found himself tiring of spring; the bright shades of field and sky, the flight of songbirds, the warmth that evaporated around his skin. It was queer. Winterfell did not belong to the jeweled tones of fresh life, but to the greys and whites and silvers of winter, steel, and snow. He prayed his thanks that the Others were put to the grave, but he missed the days that Lord Eddard reigned, when he was but a boy playing at summer with his brothers and sisters, ignorant to every secret that would haunt him now.

Before he had not worried over the dragon’s blood, nor the black heart that sat like coal in his chest, nor had he wondered which day he was living because his nights were neverending. This time, he had not slept in four days. He had watched four sunrises from the chair by his bedroom window, enamored by the blood red light that poured over the horizon like liquid fire. But he had never gone so long without even an hour of sleep, and today he was feeling it in every bone of his body.

The council meeting had begun at noon, with all the members, new and old, in attendance: Bran, Rickon, Arya, Meera, Sam, Lord Wyman, Jon himself. It had only been an hour or two judging by the light, but to Jon, an hour or two was both a moment and a lifetime. 

They spoke of bounty, destruction in the kingdoms, prisoners held, and accounts; there was discussed a new fleet to defend the coasts, and coin to be minted at White Harbor with Bran’s own likeness stamped into every face. Every kingdom was implementing its own system of coin in the wake of its new formations. The land once named Westeros was now five kingdoms where once it had been one: Dorne was ruled by the Sun Queen Arianne, Casterly Rock by King Martyn Lannister, the Iron Islands by the Iron Queen Asha Greyjoy, and the crownlands, stormlands, and the Reach by King Willas of House Tyrell. 

Bran’s own dominion included the north, the Vale, and the riverlands. His kingdom had suffered great loss in the War of Ice and Fire, but with spring had come a new and eager appreciation for the young king. There were castles under his rule that were desperate for men and needed a lord: Castle Cerwyn and the Dreadfort in the north, Harrenhal and Castle Darry in the riverlands, the small stretch of stony Fingers in the east. There were many of House Stark’s supporters that needed to be rewarded for their leal service in the retaking of Winterfell, and even more for their valiancy in the War of Ice and Fire.

The Gift had been settled with wildlings as Jon had once intended, the soil worked for food to feed the hungry mouths that had been starved so long. A few men that had survived from the Night’s Watch dwelled among them; others had gone home, and some had stayed to offer their service in Winterfell, chief among them Edd, Pyp, Satin, and Grenn. They helped train the other young boys, and Satin stayed on as Jon’s own steward.

After the midday meal had been cleared, they moved on to Winterfell’s renovations: the finishing of the First Keep, the Glass Gardens, and all the burned ceilings, floors, and pillars that had been fodder for Ramsay Snow’s fiery sack. Roose Bolton had cleared much of his bastard son’s damage, but alas there was still timber to fell and glass to make in order for Winterfell to be fully restored.

They spoke now of Rickon’s hand, that would soon be promised to Lord Wyman’s youngest granddaughter. In two months’ time, White Harbor would host a feast for the official betrothal of the prince of Winterfell and Wylla Manderly.

“Jon,” Bran was saying, “you will accompany Rickon to White Harbor when the time comes and present him in my stead. You and Arya will represent our family, and with Lord Wyman-” He nodded to the fat lord who sat across the table, red-cheeked and happy as a clam. “-announce the formal alliance of House Stark and House Manderly.”

Jon nodded his understanding, but he could not keep his eyes from seeking his cousin out. He found it hard to look at Arya, he found it hard to look _away_. Her cheekbones were flushed from the hippocras, her hair was tousled from her morning ride, and she wore stained leathers and Bran’s old tunic. And yet, she looked every inch the princess every available lord of Bran’s new kingdom was vying for.

Hoster Blackwood had only been the latest in a long line of proposals, the last son and heir of Raventree Hall. His missive had come four days prior, stamped with scarlet wax and written in a flowery hand. Bran and Arya had considered the letter together, and had not spoken of it since.

“With Prince Rickon spoken for,” Lord Wyman piped up, reaching forward for a flaky apple tart, “it may well be time for Prince Jon to be married off next.”

Jon and Arya looked up at the same exact time and locked eyes. He could not tell if it was the fat lord’s words or his cousin’s steel grey eyes that made his chest tight. _Married off…_ Once upon a time Stannis Baratheon had offered him freedom, the north, and Val. Val, with her long braid of honeyed hair and pale blue eyes, a wildling princess. He had wanted her, he could not lie, and on more than one night had wondered what it might have been like to bed her in the lord’s chambers within these very walls. But that had been a lifetime ago, and Val was dead by the hands of ice magic.

“What say you, Prince Jon? Many a pretty lady ran from King’s Landing when the Mad Queen played her green trick. There are alliances to be made in the south as well, and a wife to warm your bed might cure that frown.” Lord Wyman laughed, and Sam joined in uncertainly.

But Jon was still looking at Arya - studying, thinking, fantasizing. King’s Landing was nothing but a razed battlefield, brought to ashes and dust by the former queen Cersei Lannister, who was rumored to have died at her golden brother’s hand. Jon remembered the twins from when they came to Winterfell with King Robert, mirror images to one another, much like he and Arya had once been. He could not imagine any lifetime where he would ever wrap his fingers around her neck as Ser Jaime had done to his sister. Unless…

He might have tried to stop that thought, but he was so tired and Arya was so pretty, and she made his heart pick up a beat. He felt something _strong_ stir suddenly within him, some rough animal instinct that he had not felt since the nights he lay blanketed by stars as he slipped inside of Ygritte.

He knew he ought to be sickened, but it was difficult to be disgusted by something that felt so natural. When he had died, he had melded wolf with man irrevocably; whatever Ghost felt, Jon felt, and the direwolf’s nights were long with the hunt and the breed.

Or perhaps it had nothing to do with the direwolf at all. Perhaps it was some cruel joke the old gods had cursed him with as a fire-blooded pretender. Or was it the taint? That famous Targaryen taint that had married brother to sister for centuries. When Jon watched Arya, he felt every bone in his body dissolve to dust and his dead black heart jump to life.

Was this what it felt like when Prince Aemon the Dragonknight saw his sister across the hall; the lingering looks, the frantic heartbeats, the all too indulging _want_? Jon was no Dragonknight, and Arya no Naerys, but he loved her more than life itself - as the scars across his belly and back could prove - and wasn’t that a sign in and of itself...

No, he could not marry another. He could never act on the warring instincts that fought field in his heart, but he did not want a stranger to build a home with either.

Bran sensed the unease. “There is still time for all that,” he said flippantly, reaching for an unfurled missive that was dotted with a familiar golden stamp. “On to other matters. Lord Edric writes for Ser Gendry.”

Arya raised a brow. “Gendry,” she repeated doubtfully. 

Sam was the one to speak next. “The Lord of Storm’s End is without an heir. He and his wife are having trouble conceiving. When he heard of his last living half-brother living in the halls of Winterfell, he reached out. With no child of his own, he would name Gendry his heir.”

Jon had to grind his teeth together to keep his mouth shut. A bastard could rise high in this world, that much was true. Jon had been made Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, King in the North for a short while, and a Stark prince of Winterfell. But a bastard that had lived his life hammering steel instead of wielding it? There was little lord in that boy.

“Gendry will never agree.” Arya leaned back in her chair. “He’s too stubborn, even if he is the last of the Baratheon line.”

“Perhaps,” Bran said, “and the gods know that we need his skills. But he deserves to know all the same. I think we have spoken enough of other matters for the day. I would speak to Ser Gendry now. Jon, would you find him and send him here to me?”

Jon stood, grateful to escape - perhaps to the hot pools where he could soak his bones, or his own bed where he would wait for a night that would never come. Arya had other ideas for him. “Wait for me,” she called after him, rushing to meet him as the others dispersed. “I’ll come with you.”

They walked together from the Great Hall and descended the stairs. Alone, they were tense with silence. He wondered what she was thinking: of the smith, of Nymeria, of the way he had stared through the meeting, of any number of the secrets she held close to her heart.

“I can’t believe Lord Edric wants to make Gendry a lord.”

Jon resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He did not want to talk about the bastard smith who had eyes for her. “Nor can I. The boy’s more suited for an apron than an inheritance.”

Arya frowned, clearly displeased. “You don’t like him.” It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t care about him, Arya, there’s a difference.”

“He’s one of the good ones, you know.” They stepped together out into the yard, where the cheer of men and clangor of steel was heavier that the rumble of thunder above. The sky was a deep grey now, nearly the color of her eyes. “He helped me when I needed it.”

 _And I died for you_ , but he did not say that. Instead, he shut his mouth, eager to drop the subject of Arya’s smith. They forged ahead through the thick of the crowd watching two men dance in the center of the yard, clashing blunted swords to the song of jests and encouragements. 

Some did not bother to turn, but others openly stared at the prince and princess of Winterfell. Jon wondered what they were thinking when they saw Arya and him together. Two Starks, two wolves, a princess and a pretender? He was sure some sneered at the name he had taken, he was sure some shrunk at the man who had cheated death; some likely lusted after Arya, others just feared her. The north was ruled by wolves, and not a one was tamed.

They found the bastard smith draped over the north fence with his Brotherhood friends, the archer and the singer. He was shirtless and sweat-slick, his black hair plastered to his wet temples and his fingers black with soot. His face was bright with a laugh as he yelled out to the men in the yard. It died when Jon approached.

He dropped immediately to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Grace.”

“Rise,” Jon said. The bastard hesitantly raised his eyes, then stood to his full height. His blue eyes looked stormy as he tried to keep them on Jon, struggling not to stare at Arya. “Your king has requested your presence, Ser Gendry.”

The bastard’s thick brows rose in surprise. “The king?”

“The very man who wears the crown you sized,” Jon said tiredly. The singer, Tom, looked him up and down with a curious smirk on his mouth. Jon wanted to slap it off. He stared pointedly at the smith’s bare chest. “Clean yourself, and report to the Great Hall where His Grace awaits you.”

“I’ll take him,” Arya offered, stepping forward. Jon looked down at her, frustrated. He wanted to keep her _away_ from the muscled bastard who was too stupid to keep his eyes off of her, not push her into his willing arms.

“As you wish,” Jon was forced to say, watching irritably as they walked away together to the forge where Gendry dwelled.

Jon considered leaving, but something about the yard held his attention. He was dead tired, but there was also a strange sort of vigor in him that he knew had more to do with the smith’s presence than any sort of vitality. These days he could barely get out of bed without wanting to be back in it, but at this moment he felt like releasing the tension coiled in his muscles and slamming steel into steel. 

For the rest of the afternoon, Jon joined in with the men and boys in the yard. He went against Pyp and Grenn, like their first days in the Watch, beating them back until they yielded; he went against seasoned soldiers, who gracefully bowed out against the ice and fire hero, and helped green boys who had never so much as properly swung a sword.

When he had exhausted his efforts, he retired to the peace of the godswood. In the early hour of evening, and the sky still brewing a storm above, the wood seemed darker, more primal, a flashback to the winter days when he was a king and Winterfell was his. 

Jon shook the thought from his mind - a traitorous thought indeed - and shed his clothes to the forest floor, stepping naked into one of the steaming hot pools. The water bubbled around him, and when he closed his eyes, the heat reminded him of the flare of dragonfire on ice. His mind strayed to Rhaegal, the green-and-bronze dragon that had so briefly been his. He wondered where the beast had gone to; if he still haunted the south of the Five Kingdoms, or had found his home back in Essos, from whence he had been born into this world.

As he soaked, his mind scattered. There were flashes of the Others, Daenerys atop her black-scaled hell-creature, Arya atop Nymeria with Dark Sister in hand, Bran safe in the crypts of Winterfell as he skinchanged Viserion, Tyrion falling from the sky and plummeting to his death. He saw Arya in a dress of dark blue velvet, riding to meet a silver man with two white shadows, and then he saw her again in a dusty red tower, lying dead in a bed of black rose petals and crimson sheets.

When he opened his eyes again, the godswood was shrouded in thick shadow and a curtain of heavy rainfall, and Ghost prowled restlessly around the pool. Jon sat up quickly, shocked to see that his nightmares had finally caught up to him. He looked around, tense, struck with the feeling that he was being watched. Though by a who or a what, he was unsure. The rain was far too thick and the thunder too loud to see or hear anything.

Shaking off the queer feeling that crawled over his skin, he climbed from the pool and quickly pulled on his breeches and boots, and gathered up his tunic and belt in hand. “Ghost,” he called over the storm, “with me.” Ghost raced over and followed as he made his way out of the godswood, trodding silently behind him all the way to his chambers.

A single torch lit the hallway to his chambers, but Jon knew darkness as intimately as light. He pushed into his room and barred the door behind him. The large, rain-speckled window set into the wall allowed a dim shaft of silver moonlight to slant across the floor; it was all the light he needed.

He shucked his boots off, wiped his face and hands with his tunic, then threw it to the floor and took his chair by the window. A pot of black ink rested on the sill, as well as a half-empty book that was bookmarked by a feather pen. Sam had insisted on creating a record of the night they warred the Others; he had taken accounts from Bran, Arya, Rickon, every single person who had fought or been witness to the dragons and Walkers and their legion of wights.

Jon was the last of his family to complete his account. Though he had more days and nights to finish it, he found it hard to put pen to paper. Dwelling on that night, on the terrors and sounds and sights and smells, made sleep all the more elusive - and he was suffering enough as it was. He thumbed through the book, sifting past pages of Daenerys and Drogon, Tyrion and Viserion, ice armor and Valyrian steel...

The knock at his door was so faint he nearly missed it. Half a heartbeat went by when the knocking came again, more insistent this time, and followed by a soft call of his name. Jon stood and went to the door, pulling it open an inch. 

Arya nearly blended in with the thick of the shadows, but Jon would recognize those eyes anywhere. He opened the door all the way. "Arya." His voice was low, hushed, and made him feel dirty, like he was trying to keep her a secret. "It's late, what is the matter?"

For once there was no mask on her face. Instead, her cheeks were flushed with upset and her mouth was tilted in a frown. "I...I can't sleep."

Jon's brows furrowed. She sounded like a little girl. "Would you like me to have Sam make you a sleeping potion? I don't mind waking him."

"No," she was quick to say. She hesitated, chewing her lip in the way his little sister once had, and looked up at him unsurely. "Could I come in?"

Jon was suddenly aware of his state: damp hair clinging to his neck, unbuttoned breeches that slung below his hips, the planes of his chest slick and bare. "Arya, I don't know-"

"Please."

She reminded him so much of Arya Underfoot in that moment that he stepped back against his better wishes and allowed her through. He had a mind to keep the door open, as much to prove to others as it was for himself that his heart was pure. 

Arya was of a different mind. Her small hand came past his face and pushed the door closed. He was very aware they were alone, as was that instinct within him. He told himself this was not the time, but it would not listen - so in tune with his little sister, cousin, stranger perched on the corner of his bed in only a little slip dress and moonlight.

It was quiet for a moment before she asked, "Do you ever have nightmares?"

 _Every day_ , he might have said, but he did not want her to worry over him. "Sometimes," he admitted instead. 

She pursed her lips. "You're a poor liar, Jon. Maester Sam admitted that you don't sleep for days at a time."

 _Damn you, Sam._ "He runs his mouth like a washerwoman," Jon grumbled. 

"He worries about you. So do I. Death is not cheap, and the Red God is cruel." Her eyes got a faraway look, as if she were no longer speaking just about him. 

"It is my price to pay, and mine alone." He did not want to discuss all the ways in which death had changed him. "Enough of me. You said you couldn't sleep tonight."

Arya lowered her eyes. "I suppose I can, it's that I don't _want to_."

"And why is that?" It was a stupid question; Arya wore secrecy like a cloak, and the gods knew that was a heavy burden for a girl to wear. Jon did not know all of Arya's secrets, but he could guess at some and only wonder at others with sick curiosity, as he had once wondered about her playing wife to Ramsay Snow.

She surprised him with what she asked instead. "Do you know what they did to my mother at the Red Wedding?" Her voice was a whisper that carried on the music of stormfall.

Struck mute, Jon could only shake his head, watching the flash of lightning splay silver veins across her face. 

Her full lips parted with a breath. "They slit her throat. So deep, they almost cut her head off. A day or so after, they stripped her of her clothes and threw her naked body into the river. Like it was the world's greatest jest to mock the Tully of her rites."

"Arya..."

She forged ahead. "There was a man I knew named Beric Dondarrion. I met him after...well, that doesn't matter." She sniffed. "He died and was revived six times by a red priest and his red god. He found my mother's body at the Twins, and breathed life into her. When he died a final seventh time, she rose."

Jon could barely breathe. Six times... He had only died the once, but once had been more than enough. Six? What had Death taken from that cursed man? Memories, sleep, hunger, lust, the will to live? "I had no idea," he whispered in horror. 

"Many don't," Arya admitted. "She led the Brotherhood when Lord Beric fell. The only ones who know of Lady Stoneheart are Anguy, Tom, and Gendry." She glanced up. "And now you."

He felt compelled to say, "Thank you. For trusting me with that."

Arya stared hard. "I killed her, you know." She wrestled her hands, turning them over to intertwine in a bone-crushing grip. "She wasn't the same. Death had rotted her from the inside out, and stole every ounce of warmth and compassion until she was no longer Lady Catelyn. The day I met her she was named Lady Stoneheart, and if that wasn't the truth. I put Needle through her heart, and gave her the mercy she denied so many."

Jon tried to imagine Lady Catelyn as the monster Arya described, but he couldn't. All he could see was her auburn hair and hard blue eyes and pale cream skin. Jon pushed off of his desk and went to Arya, wrapping his arms around her. She was still skinny as a sword, but somehow soft as well. "I'm sorry," he told her gently. _I killed my mother as well._ "I'm sorry."

Arya shuddered into him and it took him a moment to realize she was crying. He smoothed a hand through her hair and held her tight with the other arm. Not for the first time, he had to wonder what horrors she had seen after Father's head had been cut off. Arya did not talk about what happened to her in the war, not to anyone. That somehow made what he imagined for her worse. 

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" Her breath fanned against his ear. She pulled back to look at him. Likely she could see the hesitance written all over his face. "Please. The nightmares won't dare tread on me if I'm with you."

 _Or they'll come for you with a vengeance_ , Jon thought. _The Red God left his mark on me, and the old gods punish me for it._ "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Arya ran her teeth over her lip, studying him. Something told him that she could bend any man to her will if she so wished. He would not be immune, of that he was certain. "I will leave if you want me to, but I don't want to be alone." She reached out to trace the violet crescent moons beneath his eyes. "Please don't send me away."

Jon sighed, closing his eyes against the sensation of her touching him. "Please," he heard her whisper again. Reluctantly, he nodded and stood, distancing himself from her hands. Before he could change his mind, he went to bar the door, mindful of unsuspecting eyes catching them in the morn.

When he turned around, he expected to find Arya watching him, but instead he found her crawling into his bed. The sight made his heart jump in sick delight, and that instinct came roaring back. He was rooted in place, overcome with doubt and fear. What if Bran caught them? What if he dreamed of Ghost? What if this somehow changed their relationship? It already sailed on uneasy waters in this new world they had found themselves in; he could not bear to lose her now. Not after all the heartbreak he had suffered through the years trying to find her.

"Jon." The word was low, calm. Arya lay on her side and watched him. "Lay with me?"

The giant in the sky roared his defiance, and it seemed as if the castle shook with the force. A shudder went through his body that had nothing to do with the storm. Jon took a breath and one step forward, then another, and another, until he was slipping beneath the covers of his bed. 

Arya turned over to face him, and for a moment they stared. Jon's heart hammered like the hooves of a warhorse on the battlefield, and he was certain she could hear it over the storm. Without notice, she reached out to trace the thick scars mutiny had left in his skin. His belly quivered at her touch. 

"Are you ticklish?" Her voice was breathy, innocent, inquisitive. A perfected mummer's tone.

"No," Jon was forced to admit. 

Arya looked up at him, big grey eyes that seemed to take up his whole world. She seemed to steel herself for one long moment before she whispered, "I'm glad you came back."

"Came back?"

"From death." A single tear fell from the corner of her eye.

The sight of that tear hurt worse than any of his brothers' knives on that cold night. "C'mere," he murmured. She wiggled closer without hesitation, and curled herself into his naked chest. She was the warmest thing he had felt in months, warmer even than the hot pools, and he was sure she could feel the beat of his heart now.

Somehow he no longer cared. "Sleep well, little sister." The familiar words tumbled easily from his lips, and she burrowed tighter into his embrace. He threw one arm around her back, and buried the other in the thick mane of her hair. And then he closed his eyes to the sound of rainfall and the smell of her, and slept. Deeply, soundly, dreamlessly.


End file.
